Orchids and Rainboots
by sharksteeth
Summary: Her favourite flower had always been the orchid. It was unusual, and that was the way she liked things.


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else belonging to JK Rowling. Everything but the plot belongs to her and her publishers alone. I am not earning any type of profit on this. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
Notes: What can I say? I've been working on this one since November. Yes, November. Still not happy with it, at all. Please review, and if you have any tips on how to improve this story, please include those as well. My first real attempt at something half-fluffy. (And this ship is becoming rather popular, I've noticed.)  
  
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Orchids and Rainboots  
  
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Her favourite flower had always been the orchid. The best kind was purple, yellow, and black, and had uneven edges. It was unusual, and that was the way she liked things. It had a different smell, which no one else seemed to notice, and a different air to it. It was nothing like other flowers, but it was certainly her favourite.  
  
It had been her mother's favourite, too. She'd even designed a spell to make them spring out of old rainboots, keyholes in doors, and the fireplace, even if it was lit. It always made her and her mother laugh hysterically, until her father brought in cocoa, which always helped. Then the three of them would go around the room together, scooping up the flowers and placing them in already-full vases, and pretty porcelain teacups.  
  
But now, at Hogwarts, there wasn't much room for talk about orchids and rainboots. The girls in her dormitory insisted on discussing the immaturity of the boys in each of their classes and the "depressing" fact that they didn't know where they could ever get a decent boyfriend around here. The common room and dormitories were always full of the smell of nailpolish, and the bedroom floors were littered with magazines and posters of "cute Muggle boys". But such things never interested her, and so she kept tucked away with a book, or better yet, her favourite magazine -- which didn't, as she liked to point out, consist of cute boys.  
  
One night, she tried to have a real conversation with the girls in her house. Or rather, she asked them a question.  
  
"What's your favourite flower?"  
  
Red roses, pink roses, yellow roses, white roses. Carnations and lilies. Tulips and violets.  
  
How boring, she thought. And she went back to her corner to read.  
  
---  
  
She went to the library sometimes.  
  
When she did, she never looked up the history of goblin wars or how to turn a block of wood into a dish of potatoes (not to say that anyone would ever need that). She didn't sit in a corner, crying over sappy Muggle romance novels that somehow made their way into the school, and she didn't sit at a desk poring over scrolls and bits of parchment, studying the afternoon away for upcoming exams.  
  
Instead, she stared out of the dusty windows, which gave a perfect view of the greenhouse. She would just go outside, and look at the flowers and plants up close, but she liked to have a pile of herbology books handy, and Madam Pince would never let her take out that many at once. Besides, it was almost a familiar feeling to her, to sit there, longing for something she couldn't reach. It was like the stories her father used to tell her, of dragons and faraway places, and daring princesses who brandished their swords and fought off pirates and bank robbers. It was certainly the life she preferred to live, but knew she never could.  
  
So, there she sat, reading about Venomous Tentaculae and staring through the glass. She used to only do this when her roommates were being completely insufferable, but that became a more often occurrence as time went by, so she eventually found herself sitting on the window ledges, lap full of several thick volumes, every single day.  
  
---  
  
One quiet, humid, Sunday afternoon in June, she left her dormitory without anyone noticing she had left. She was supposed to be putting up her annual signs on the corridor noticeboards, including a plea for the return of her possessions, but she just hadn't felt like it. Either her things would come back, or they wouldn't. By now, she'd known enough not to bring anything really important.  
  
So, she chose to spend her last few days at Hogwarts doing what she liked best. Sitting in the library, turning page after page, looking at the beautiful flowers of France and the poisonous, red, plant-like creatures of South Asia. She closed her eyes and could see, smell, and hear them all around her, swaying in the breeze and looking more radiant and beautiful than she thought could ever be real. She loved it.  
  
"May I see that?" A quiet, shy voice brought her out of the giant, green jungles and back to the desk, shining with sunlight from the window.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"That, um . your book. I haven't seen it here before."  
  
"This one?" She closed the cover.  
  
"Mm-hmm." The boy, whom she knew by name and face, began to take great interest in the soles of his shoes. "Where did you find it?"  
  
"Oh, I didn't take it from the shelves. Daddy bought it for me last year. He said he would do anything to get me out of the sun for a couple of hours; I think was burning up quite a bit, from all the gardening."  
  
"You garden?" He looked up.  
  
"Yes, I absolutely love Herbology." The boy smiled a bit, and so she decided to ask him a question. "Um . what's your favourite flower?"  
  
"Oh, uh . well, I don't like flowers much . but I still have that Mimbulus mimbletonia. You know, the one that kind of exploded on the train . s-sorry about that, by the way."  
  
She giggled. "This one's my favourite." She pointed to a purple orchid.  
  
"It's pretty."  
  
"It is, isn't it? I wonder if Daddy would let me look into a Mimbulus mimbletonia one day . I think Mum would have thought them highly interesting." She stared at a shelf for a moment, then blinked and stood up quickly.  
  
She piled all her books into her arms and left without even checking them out, and with the boy standing there staring.  
  
---  
  
A month had passed. School was long over and everyone was back at home. She spent most afternoons at Ginny Weasley's house, sucking on cherry-flavoured lollies under the apple tree, swimming in the river, and catching frogs in the dewy grass. They had become much better friends lately, and even Ron was starting to let up on his attitude towards his little sister's new companion.  
  
Nights were spent at her house after dinner at the Weasleys', sipping hot cocoa and reading stories to each other in front of the fire.  
  
But one afternoon, when no one had come round and there was nothing left to do, she decided it was about time she got back to her gardening. It was a boring sort of day, but she felt she should make at least something of it.  
  
She went to the gardening cupboard in the kitchen and sat down, about to take out her tools, gloves, pots, and soil. But before she could remove anything, she heard a gentle knock at the soft wooden door. She lazily rose and walked towards it.  
  
"I'll get that, Daddy," she called out to him; he had spent his entire morning in the study, trying to write several new articles for his magazine, all at once.  
  
She opened the door, and stared.  
  
There he was. He stood, smiling awkwardly, hair neatly combed. He was holding a pot. A flower pot, with a tidy purple ribbon tied around it's middle and an unusual looking plant inside of it. Mimbulus mimbletonia. And it's boils and bumps had sprouted uneven blossoms of purple, yellow, and black.  
  
Without even a greeting, she stepped aside to let him in and cocked her head to the side at him.  
  
"How do you feel about cocoa?"  
  
He smiled and she invited him to sit down. Her father came out, they were introduced, and she took three mugs out of the cupboard.  
  
---  
  
And as they sat, drank, and laughed together, orchids of purple, yellow, and black had shot out from the fireplace, the keyholes in the doors, and an old pair of rainboots in the corner. 


End file.
